Late childbirth might have more to do with a woman’s longevity than her environment.
Ken Smith and his team of researchers were interested in why certain people are able to live longer than others. Smith, a professor of family and consumer studies at the U, was able to connect late menopause to an extended lifespan in a study that focused on the brothers of women who gave birth in their forties or later.
The study showed that those women who naturally gave birth later in life lived longer than those who didn’t.
The researchers pulled their results from Utah and Quebec’s historic genealogical records, focusing on the period before people were able to control fertility.
Most people living in Utah at the time were Mormon pioneers. The French founded Quebec about 150 years earlier. Their population was mostly Roman Catholic. Because of the religious backgrounds of both areas, women of the time tended not to use contraceptives and had larger families.
The researchers found that despite the differences in the two areas’ environments, the results were the same. The later in life a woman had a child, the longer she8212;and as it happens, her brothers8212;would live.
The records studied in Quebec were about 150 years older than Utah’s, and Quebec’s conditions were much harsher. This helped Smith rule out environment as a strong factor as to why they had a longer life span.
“We found the same results in both areas,” Smith said. “It wasn’t just a fluke.”
Even menopause, which puts a stop to having children late in life, can help improve a woman’s longevity.
During menopause, a woman’s ovaries stop functioning. This could provide an advanced warning about what will eventually happen to the other organs. According to Smith’s findings, the ovaries were able to function for a longer period of time if menopause happens later in life, and the other vital organs in the body might also work longer, giving a woman a greater life span.
“It’s not that (menopause) causes you to live longer,” but it could act as a great guide in understanding the other organs, Smith said.
The study will be released in print June 10 in the Journal of Gerontology: Biological Sciences and is already available online on the publication’s Web site.